Emby what happens when Jellyfin becomes just as good if not better ?

[TMCsw 248]

1 hour ago, softworkz said:

So, Plex doesn't?

I really don't fallow much of what 'orange' is doing anymore.

But Last I've seen they still don't support AC4 (saying their legal stiffs are still negotiating the license.. ...)   , but some(ones)? have hacked your emby ffmpeg and have it working on orange...

Edited June 30, 2024 by TMCsw
typo

[softworkz 5066]

On 6/30/2024 at 4:25 AM, TMCsw said:

still don't support AC4 (saying their legal stiffs are still negotiating the license.. ...) 

I can hardly believe that (not them saying it, I mean them doing that), because it would create a precedence for other codecs which have according patents. If we were paying for everything with applicable patents, there was no Emby and there was no Plex - at least not at that price. 

What's especially despicable regarding AC-4 is that Dolby managed to push it as a mandatory audio codec into the ATSC3.0 spec, even though there was absolutely no need for that from the technical side (at least the spec could have required a stereo audio stream with AC-3 or AAC).

Dolby is known for acting quite aggresively at times, writing intimidating letters and making appearances with a bunch of lawyers, but they also seem to avoid negative publicity - or maybe don't want to risk loosing any lawsuites, because if they would loose a lawsuit against a small company then it could also have the effect that their really big player customers might cancel their contracts.

Edited July 1, 2024 by softworkz

[BillOatman 596]

I always thought that any licensing fees should be on the encoding, not the decoding.  But I am not a lawyer.  I have never even played one on TV.

[softworkz 5066]

12 minutes ago, BillOatman said:

I always thought that any licensing fees should be on the encoding, not the decoding.

No. The patent holders wouldn't earn much this way, because then it would concentrate on a few service providers doing the encoding. Of course they want to benefit from every single TV, computer or other device, and those usually don't do encoding.

The fees for using a patented technology are usually called "royalties". What might come on top is "license cost" for the software which does the encoding and/or decoding, unless you do your own implementation or use an open-source (or free) implementation.

 

Edited June 30, 2024 by softworkz

[softworkz 5066]

But since the encoding process is much more complex, typically there are more patents on the encoding side than on the decoding side. (it's not like there's one H.264 patent and one H.265 patent - there are several specific detail-patents instead, often held by different entities, and some apply to encoding only.)

And then, encoders are not all the same. Not all patents on encoding are mandatory to use (but some are), so an encoder can choose not to use certain patented procedures (likely) at the cost of a less effective compression/quality rate.

Edited June 30, 2024 by softworkz

[Vittatus 6]

The growing buzz around Jellyfin suggests that it's rapidly catching up to Emby and is poised to surpass it in the near future.

Emby's Android app is essentially a web wrapper with a built-in player that, frankly, is quite lower to the native Android TV version.

The pricing model for Emby's standalone apps (some paid, some not) makes no sense. It doesn't make sense to pay for the Android TV app while not paying for the LG, Samsung, or TvOS versions.

The device limit, with no clear indication of which devices are active and which are not, and the lack of an unlimited version are also drawbacks.

Jellyfin's Android TV app is on track to far surpass Emby's, as they've completely rewritten the playback code and will adapt the interface sooner or later.

Switfin, the native iOS app for Jellyfin, is still in its polishing phase, but it looks native and functional. It's just a matter of time before they implement new features and refine it.

Emby needs to make a radical change of course, not just with its apps (we don't want an app with a web design) but also with its absurd licensing model that charges for one thing and not another or limits clients without knowing who or what is limited.

Edited June 30, 2024 by Vittatus

[softworkz 5066]

19 minutes ago, Vittatus said:

The pricing model for Emby's standalone apps (some paid, some not) makes no sense. It doesn't make sense to pay for the Android TV app while not paying for the LG, Samsung, or TvOS versions.

You do pay for those via the Premiere license for the server.

The per-client payment is just an alternate way for certain clients. We can offer that alternative way only for specific clients. It doesn't work for TV platforms because then the manufacturers would categorize us as content providers where they want to get their share, but Emby is not a content provider and in their logic there don't exist any other types of paid apps.

19 minutes ago, Vittatus said:

The device limit, with no clear indication of which devices are active

There are plans on improving this.

19 minutes ago, Vittatus said:

the lack of an unlimited version are also drawbacks.

How many clients do you need?

19 minutes ago, Vittatus said:

Switfin, the native iOS app for Jellyfin, is still in its polishing phase, but it looks native and functional. It's just a matter of time before they implement new features and refine it.

We are miles ahead.

During the past year, we've developed a new unified client application architecture which allows us to make changes faster and with less effort in the future. The new Windows app (beta starting shortly) is the first one built on this architecture, same applies to the new xbox app.

Edited June 30, 2024 by softworkz

[softworkz 5066]

21 minutes ago, Vittatus said:

Emby's Android app is essentially a web wrapper

The native apps are way more than just a wrapper. While it's true that the UI is an HTML/JS application, there's plenty of functinoality at the native (non-html) side of the client apps.

[Vittatus 6]

29 minutes ago, softworkz said:

Los pagas a través de la licencia de Premiere para el servidor.

El pago por cliente es solo una forma alternativa para ciertos clientes. Podemos ofrecer esa forma alternativa solo para clientes específicos. No funciona para las plataformas de televisión porque entonces los fabricantes nos categorizarían como proveedores de contenido donde quieren obtener su parte, pero Emby no es un proveedor de contenido y en su lógica no existen otros tipos de aplicaciones pagas.

Hay planes para mejorar esto.

¿Cuántos clientes necesitas?

Estamos muy por delante.

Durante el año pasado, desarrollamos una nueva arquitectura de aplicación cliente unificada que nos permite realizar cambios más rápido y con menos esfuerzo en el futuro. La nueva aplicación de Windows (beta que comenzará en breve) es la primera construida sobre esta arquitectura, lo mismo se aplica a la nueva aplicación de xbox.

 

Limits should be based on the number of users, not devices. A single user could easily utilize 10 different devices (2-3 TVs with Fire Sticks, 2 phones, a tablet, a PC, etc.). It makes no sense to limit users to 25 devices, or even the maximum of 75, as there's no way to predict how many devices a family, group of friends, or any other user group might have. Limiting by the number of users would be more understandable. 50, 100, whatever the number, but not by devices.

Even Jellyfin doesn't have this device limit, which will always work against Emby unless the benefits of using Emby are far superior to using Jellyfin. Honestly, apart from the interface and a few other features that I'm sure will be implemented, I don't see what Emby offers that Jellyfin doesn't. We just want to press play and watch. Emby does the same thing as Jellyfin.

 

Well, I have 7 siblings, each with their respective partners and some with children. How many devices do you think I might need?

I also have friends, who also have partners and children... If each user needs 10 devices (2 TVs, PC, 2 phones, tablet, and leave some spare devices), I would need at least 200 devices...

The problem is that you always think that everyone is a family with 1 child and at most 2 friends. Luckily, not everyone is like that, and there are people with large families or more than 1-2 friends.

Edited June 30, 2024 by Vittatus

[softworkz 5066]

 

 

50 minutes ago, Vittatus said:

Jellyfin's Android TV app is on track to far surpass Emby's, as they've completely rewritten the playback code and will adapt the interface sooner or later.

Switfin, the native iOS app for Jellyfin, is still in its polishing phase, but it looks native and functional. It's just a matter of time before they implement new features and refine it.

These kinds of messages are being posted every once in a while. It had started right after the fork. People predicted that it will shortly quickly become superior to Emby "because it's open source". But those predictions haven't held true. They made progress of course - but we did either, so in total, I'm not sure whether they even managed to reduce the distance. Maybe they did, mayber not, but if they did, it's not that much and nowhere near of what they claimed they would achieve quickly and also nowhere near Emby.

 

42 minutes ago, Vittatus said:

The growing buzz around Jellyfin suggests that it's rapidly catching up to Emby and is poised to surpass it in the near future.

I think that any buzz about personal media servers is only good for Emby.

It's just natural that something that is available for free is generating more interest as it has a much lower entry bar. Many people try it, just because it's free, even though the actually do not need it, so I'm pretty sure that the ratio between users who install it and users who stick to it for regular use is on a totally different level when comparing between Emby and JF.

Once somebody has installed it and is serious about using it alone or within their family, they will sooner or later switch to Emby, where everything is working and you don't need to hear your family complaining regularly.

[Vittatus 6]

2 minutes ago, softworkz said:

 

 

Este tipo de mensajes se publican de vez en cuando. Había comenzado justo después de la bifurcación. La gente predijo que pronto se convertirá rápidamente en superior a Emby "porque es de código abierto". Pero esas predicciones no se han cumplido. Ellos hicieron progresos, por supuesto, pero nosotros tampoco, así que en total, no estoy seguro de si lograron reducir la distancia. Tal vez lo hicieron, tal vez no, pero si lo hicieron, no es mucho y no está ni cerca de lo que afirmaron que lograrían rápidamente y tampoco cerca de Emby.

 

Creo que cualquier rumor sobre los servidores de medios personales solo es bueno para Emby.

Es natural que algo que está disponible de forma gratuita genere más interés, ya que tiene una barra de entrada mucho más baja. Mucha gente lo prueba, solo porque es gratis, aunque en realidad no lo necesiten, por lo que estoy bastante seguro de que la proporción entre los usuarios que lo instalan y los usuarios que se adhieren a él para su uso regular está en un nivel totalmente diferente cuando se compara entre Emby y JF.

Una vez que alguien lo ha instalado y se toma en serio su uso solo o dentro de su familia, tarde o temprano se cambiará a Emby, donde todo funciona y no necesita escuchar a su familia quejarse regularmente.

The new Android TV app is the worst app I've tried in years, a web design slapped onto a TV that works worse than the old Android TV version. It's not that you've gotten better, you're going backwards... The original app works perfectly and was adapted to what it's like to control the interface with a remote control, but you've decided to use the web interface because that way you only have to adapt one thing and it's replicated on all devices. That is not and will never be the solution because it is not the same to use the app with your hand, a remote control or a mouse.

As for the fact that it always works... there are many bugs that have been reported in the forums thousands of times.

Downloads are a mess, they don't work well and they don't do what a user wants.

Transcoding for no apparent reason is more common than usual, the device is compatible, but Emby decides to transcode because "the bitrate is not enough", but then you go to settings, turn off auto and set 4K 120 and nothing happens.

It has been requested thousands of times in the forums to allow limiting transcoding by quality, since transcoding a 4K makes no sense. (We've been dealing with this for 4 years and it still hasn't been implemented).

I could go on listing things that Luke has been saying "soon" for years and never arrive...

[softworkz 5066]

21 minutes ago, Vittatus said:

Limits should be based on the number of users, not devices. A single user could easily utilize 10 different devices (2-3 TVs with Fire Sticks, 2 phones, a tablet, a PC, etc.). It makes no sense to limit users to 25 devices, or even the maximum of 75, as there's no way to predict how many devices a family, group of friends, or any other user group might have. Limiting by the number of users would be more understandable. 50, 100, whatever the number, but not by devices.

"By users" might appear to be kind of "more fair", but there are two showstopping reasons against it:

• Users could be "cheating" and have multiple people share the same Emby user account
• Emby respects the privacy of its users and thus we don't have any way to access or even know about the Emby users you have on your Emby server, and we're also not able to know when and which user is logging on or off from a specific Emby client.
  With device tracking, we don't need to collect any personal data from app users an that's a very good thing IMO

[Vittatus 6]

9 minutes ago, softworkz said:

"Por parte de los usuarios" puede parecer algo "más justo", pero hay dos razones espectaculares en su contra:

• Los usuarios podrían estar "haciendo trampa" y hacer que varias personas compartan la misma cuenta de usuario de Emby
• Emby respeta la privacidad de sus usuarios y, por lo tanto, no tenemos ninguna forma de acceder o incluso saber sobre los usuarios de Emby que tiene en su servidor de Emby, y tampoco podemos saber cuándo y qué usuario está iniciando o cerrando sesión desde un cliente específico de Emby.
  Con el seguimiento de dispositivos, no necesitamos recopilar ningún dato personal de los usuarios de la aplicación y eso es algo muy bueno, en mi opinión

"Users could be "cheating" and have multiple people share the same Emby user account".
 

So what does it matter if a user shares their account with their cousin? But you're already going into the piracy and account selling business.

Right now, there are unlocked apps that can be installed on Android very easily and bypass the device lock. Anyone who wants to sell accounts will do so because this method is easier as they can create as many users as they want and use an "unlocked" app to sell them to whoever they want.

I'm not even talking about the fact that on Samsung, LG, and TvOS, the apps are free and don't even require unlocked apps.

What are you going to say when Jellyfin is more developed and sellers switch to Jellyfin because they get everything without limitations? That those who stay with Emby are cheating?

Deciding something based on what a few people do and not the majority of people who want it for personal use is like limiting all cars to 100km/h because there are some who don't respect speed limits...

Edited June 30, 2024 by Vittatus

[softworkz 5066]

Honestly, I don't understand the problem. If you have such a big family, you should easily be able to collect a few dollars from them for buying one the the extension packs.

7 minutes ago, Vittatus said:

So what does it matter if a user shares their account with their cousin?

It doesn't matter. But it would matter if we would have a per-user licensing instead of per-device licensing - like YOU SUGGESTED.

9 minutes ago, Vittatus said:

Right now, there are unlocked apps that can be installed on Android very easily and bypass the device lock.

Cracks exist for almost any software on this planet. But there are caveats, like that it's illegal, or that they are not regularly updated and unfixed bugs are accumulating. Then you got a similar result like when using JF.

BTW, one of the founders of JellyFin had released a crack for Emby about a year before the fork.

[Vittatus 6]

58 minutes ago, softworkz said:

Honestly, I don't understand the problem. If you have such a big family, you should easily be able to collect a few dollars from them for buying one the the extension packs.

It doesn't matter. But it would matter if we would have a per-user licensing instead of per-device licensing - like YOU SUGGESTED.

Cracks exist for almost any software on this planet. But there are caveats, like that it's illegal, or that they are not regularly updated and unfixed bugs are accumulating. Then you got a similar result like when using JF.

BTW, one of the founders of JellyFin had released a crack for Emby about a year before the fork.

$20 a month for 75 devices? That's $240 a year for software that limits the number of devices you can use... Do you think this software is worth $240 a year? When you have Plex, which is free or at most $120 lifetime for 100 users, and Jellyfin, which is clearly worse but is free? Time will tell who was right, if the users (there is already another thread in the forum talking about Emby's funding and people are not very keen on paying these amounts of money).

 

I have Emby paid for life, I share it with my brothers because I have the 25-device limit. Many of them have already switched to Jellyfin, those who have more knowledge and better devices. I continue to use Emby because it is clearly better than Jellyfin at the moment and because I have the lifetime license paid for. But as soon as Jellyfin has a somewhat more polished interface on Android, I will try to switch everything to Jellyfin, not because I don't want to pay, I don't mind paying something reasonable for software, but not $240 to tell my brothers that they can only install it on a few devices because we have reached the limit.

Edited June 30, 2024 by Vittatus

[yocker 1247]

I don't want to touch the Emby vs other Media server software but will chime in on the device limit.

The 25 device limit is a bit low IMO seeing as one person easily consumes at least 3-4 devices. I my self use a phone, my main TV, my bedroom TV and a TV at my parents house. A friend of mine that i have given access uses alot of devices with him, hes wife and kids watching.

Maybe a compromise could be made by limiting the number of simultaneous streams  while upping the device limit or just lowering the device time out.

For the rather steep price paid for the life time and with the amount of devices people use today 25 devices is not enough in my opinion.

Hope i don't sound to negative, because i love the software and the work the Emby team does specially the quick response to help requests on this site, but without voicing my opinion there's little chance of any change happening.

[softworkz 5066]

7 minutes ago, yocker said:

I don't want to touch the Emby vs other Media server software but will chime in on the device limit.

The 25 device limit is a bit low IMO seeing as one person easily consumes at least 3-4 devices. I my self use a phone, my main TV, my bedroom TV and a TV at my parents house. A friend of mine that i have given access uses alot of devices with him, hes wife and kids watching.

Maybe a compromise could be made by limiting the number of simultaneous streams  while upping the device limit or just lowering the device time out.

For the rather steep price paid for the life time and with the amount of devices people use today 25 devices is not enough in my opinion.

Hope i don't sound to negative, because i love the software and the work the Emby team does specially the quick response to help requests on this site, but without voicing my opinion there's little chance of any change happening.

Have you ever hit the device limit actually?

[softworkz 5066]

2 hours ago, Vittatus said:

$20 a month for 75 devices? That's $240 a year for software that limits the number of devices you can use...

If you have 7 siblings with partners and every second one has a child, that makes 1 + 7 + 7 + 3 = 18 persons.  240 / 18 = 13.3 per person, so that makes $1.10 per person per month. That doesn't sound like a steep pricing to me.

[yocker 1247]

1 hour ago, softworkz said:

Have you ever hit the device limit actually?

No, but i fear very much that i will hit that limit very fast if i give a few more friends access.. Something i would very much like to do.

[yocker 1247]

Looking at the device list i count 12 unique devices (not counting browsers) with 5 active users (my self included), a good deal taken up by one user and my self. Granted a few are more than a week old but are as said unique so could be active again. So in theory 3 more heavy users.

Would it maybe be possible to make it so you can buy lets say access for 10 more devices at a time to increase the limit that way? In my mind that would benefit both customers and you guys.

[softworkz 5066]

2 minutes ago, yocker said:

No, but i fear very much that i will hit that limit very fast if i give a few more friends access.. Something i would very much like to do.

This is not an official answer, but from my understanding over the years, something like an average family and maybe two or three friends is always meant to be covered by the regular license and it's not intended that you need to buy any extra license for this. I don't know the algorithm, conditions and numbers, but it's not that you will see an immediate cut when it goes from 25 to 26. Just search the forums here for users who have actually hit the device limit, you won't find that many.

@ebr- correct?

[yocker 1247]

Not being an immediate cut puts my mind at ease and i'm not at the limit, for now at least.

In the end, my point is just how the limit might be a little unfortunate as how one person can easily use up a lot of device uses and maybe a better business model can be found/made. Keeping in mind the software is not made for mass broadcasting use ofc.

Anyway, keep up the good work!

[Vittatus 6]

2 hours ago, softworkz said:

Si tienes 7 hermanos con pareja y uno de cada dos tiene un hijo, eso hace 1 + 7 + 7 + 3 = 18 personas. 240 / 18 = 13.3 por persona, por lo que gana $ 1.10 por persona por mes. Eso no me parece un precio elevado.

Sure, normal people don't have cousins, uncles, friends... they live in a cave without sunlight 24/7... 18 people / 75 devices comes out to 4 devices per person, assuming there are only 18 people... once you add 3 or 4 more people, in the end each person can only use it on 1 device... I'm not going to get into silly arguments that lead nowhere. People have personal situations and what seems normal to you to charge your siblings for the service, to others of us it seems like a barbarity to do so since we invite them because we want to... to pay monthly they hire Netflix and get rid of the hassle of whether they use 2 or 24 devices.

Netflix costs $17 per month, which means... €4.25 per month between 4 people and you have the entire Netflix catalog, and I'm talking about Netflix which is the most expensive one, if you get Disney or MAX which are $10 it's even less. Do you think anyone in your family is going to pay $3/4 a month for an app where you have to upload the content yourself? that only offers a nice interface? Netflix offers you a catalog of over 5,000 movies and 3,000 series for $4 a month... without any worries.

Edited June 30, 2024 by Vittatus

[softworkz 5066]

Getting back to the original question (slightly rephrased):

Q: Will JF catch up with Emby within the next few years?

A: No, they won't!

 

To explain that, let's look at some figures ( source )

 

1. They were already a fuill year behind Emby right when they started
   You can see the gap between 2018 and 2019. This exists because Emby had switched to closed source at the end of 2017 and we didn't work on the the public code anymore.
   When they forked, the code that they got was already a year behind of Emby's then-actual code base.
    
2. Contributors and Commit Counts
   The largest amount of commits in their code is still from Luke. He made 13.5k commits.. There were at least 500 commits from others before they forked, so it's 14k commits at the time of forking. Meanwhile they're at 26k commits, which means they've added 12k commits. But they are using a different workflow: Everything is going through pull requests, while Luke's commits were made directly on the repo. When using PRs, there's always an additional merge commit added. The means from the 12k commits were only 6k actual commits.
   The totals:
   • Emby made 14k commits in 5 years (2.8k/year)
   • JF made 6k commits in 7 years (0.85k/year)
     => Emby's progress is 3x the speed of JF
     Yes, that's measured against the early phase of Emby Server. I used it, because you can verify those figures as that's all public
     (I also checked against figures from the same time span and we were still more than 2x faster since the fork)
      
3. Trend of Activity
   Just look at the diagram over the years (above). There has been a lot of activity at the start, but since 2021 activity is constantly decreasing and got very small in 2023 and 2024.
   The following Emby figures are very different and show constant work:
   
    
4. Code Files of the Server
   • JF: 1,726 CS files
   • Emby: 3,749 CS files
     (the already developed parts of TVnext will add another 1k CS files soon)

 

Conclusion

None of those metrics alone is a perfect indicator, but when viewing it altogether and with the averaging over such long periods, the assessment is crystal clear:

JS is far behind Emby and the distance is constantly increasing. Of course they can develop a specific client app. That doesn't mean anything though.
We have developed more than a dozen of client apps and some of theirs are still our old ones essentially - all of which we have further developed and evolved - which they didn't do (for all),  just one or the other specific ones.

So the answer to the question is very clear: They won't catch up anytime soon, because they are years behind!

 

PS: That doesn't mean that they cannot do one or the other thing better than Emby. That's easy and always possible and there can be many reasons for why Emby doesn't have it or just not yet or does it differently. But a few cherries don't make a tree..

Edited July 1, 2024 by softworkz

[guytpetj 2]

On 6/23/2021 at 4:42 PM, CBers said:

If that was in reply to me, then it just shows that many hands make light work. 

They have a TEAM of developers working on JF, whereas Emby has Luke and Eric, each specialising in their own areas. 

There may be a few other devs on the Emby team, but they aren't the core developers (no disrespect). 

JF just get things done, quicker. 

I still much prefer Emby, but JF is now a solid alternative to both Plex and Emby. 

Thanks. 

 

I've seen this before where a software with a larger team was moving forward (Media Portal). Team members came and go. Plugins were started, completed, but when the developer left never maintained. The faster progress slowed as new team members had a larger learning curve and leaving team members never properly handed over. This is the risk with Jellyfin.

Emby has less of this risk as the software is properly managed by core developers.

Many features are nice to have, when they are developed you may use them once or twice and the forget about them. A stable core program with all the key features is the key to survival.

Edited June 30, 2024 by guytpetj